The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase

1998

While Louisiana Purchase feels at times like a mere succession of sideshow freaks – it seems to lack the brave humanism of The Act of Killing in favor of more grotesque portraiture – the inscrutable way in which it snakes from subject to subject, from potential "documentary" to dreamlike fabrication, and from retro interview footage to expressively blotchy 8mm experimentation gives it a pulse that's uniquely unnerving.

If The Act of Killing uses reenactments to elicit horrible truths, Oppenheimer's shenanigans here and apocalyptic voiceover (drawled by the microwaving mother character) conjure the unreality of fringe belief systems and myth creation. The raucous clip montages suggest a debt to Craig Baldwin or Bruce Conner, but Oppenheimer's theatrical mélange is of its decade, showing a younger generation digging into American ur-history.